Memoirs of Blanche Patricia Bass
(Terry wrote these notes at Maggie’s request in her latter years. They are transcribed almost verbatim although the odd proposition has been added so they scan. The headlines have been added to help you find your place. The ‘flashbacks’ have been italicised to show they are out of sequence. The notes cover her early life from the time from her birth until her marriage.)
I was born on a Thursday, 5th 1st 1928 in a hospital in Poplar in the East End of London. Our home was 70 West India Dock Road, Limehouse. I had a sister older than me. When I was born, she was 5 years old. I know nothing about my mother and her prior to this.
My mother had moved to the above address in a large corner house of friends of hers. Mr and Mrs Bulbar or Bulbs as they became known. During the 5 years they lived there, my father was in China. He was a ship’s clerk at the West India Dock. Ana was his father, who I never knew.
Dad
Each year, for a day or so, the Port of London Authority opened their books, as it was called, and existing clerks and other grades were allowed to enter their new born sons’ names down for similar positions when leaving school and learning the trade if chosen. My grandfather put down his three sons and all were successful. The eldest, George, to the White Star Line, my father to Scrumons and Tom, the youngest, to the Blue Star Line.
My father achieved such a good reputation that many shipping companies abroad requested that he saw to the loading and unloading of their ships. He later became Superintendent of Ship Clerks and lectured to the up and coming young ones. China wanted him over there and he went for five years. When he returned, I was born. That’s how she [my older sister] was nearly 6 years older.
I know nothing at all about the time before my birth (as I grew older, I had my suspicions but never asked or mentioned them). While he was in China, my father got Malaria badly and was sent to Japan. Why there, I do not know, neither did he say why he went or why he was sent to Russia. He brought back two trunks. One had all his clothes and such like – evening suits, dancing pumps, shirts and everyday things. And in the other, smaller trunk, many gifts – tea sets of finest china, jade, ivory and other things of that ilk. His larger trunk was stolen on his journey home. He always said that they must have thought the larger trunk had these things in them, but because of the depression, he sold these pieces bit by bit.
Back to his family. He also had three sisters. The only one I can remember is Nelly. I only met her less than half a dozen times. His father had died before I was born. His mother was diabetic and was huge – a right matriarch – and I only saw her sitting there in her chair laying down the law to one and all. I only met her about three times. My father on these occasions took only me with him, not my mother or Thelma. The last time I saw her was when she was dead. It is something that always stayed with me. In those days, the undertaker would prepare the body and take it in the coffin to the house without the lid on and place it on a table and everyone, us children as well, had to go up to the coffin and kiss her goodbye on her forehead. You don’t forget things like that! But us children loved the black horses; four in all, with their large plumes on their heads.
Dad’s sister, Nelly, married a Russian Jew, Rhuben, and had a girl and a boy; Helen, the girl, Jo Jo, the boy. Rhuben had a tailor’s business in poplar and one in New York. They lived half the year here and half the year in the USA.
Mum’s Family
Now, my mother’s family: [there was] Grandfather De La Roche; I never knew her mother, Blanche. She died when Pat was born. The eldest girl, Lilian, next my mother, then a boy (can’t remember his name – Bob) and I only saw him once. Then Ellen, then Jim and finally Pat. Pat was about two years old when my mother was at Grandad’s house, which was on the Isle of Dogs and known as Millwall. You went over to the island in those days by a wooden bridge. Lilly was out when a woman knocked on the door. Mum answered it and the woman asked for Lilian. Mum said she wasn’t there at the moment and that she was a sister, could she help. The woman said she was from a children’s home and Lily had applied to them to take the younger ones away to put in the home. Mother saw her off in no uncertain terms and was still simmering when Lily rushed in asking Mum if a lady had called. Mum let her have it good and proper.
All the siblings were redheads – only Mum and Jim had black hair. I always said she should have been a redhead with her temper. Slow to surface but beat a hasty retreat when she lost it. But she never did with Thelma and I. I can always remember one incident in particular. She was late back from shopping and as she was emptying the groceries from the bags, my father walked into the kitchen and moaned about her lateness and was waiting for his dinner. He was standing in the doorway as she was taking the meat out of the bag. The next moment, ‘Wham’ – a bloody joint hit him in the chest, slithering down his shirt leaving a trail of blood, followed by a string of sausages which somehow got caught over his ear. He just stood there for a moment, stepped back from the meat though still with the sausages hanging from his hear, turned on his heel and shut himself in the front room. Mum flopped into a chair and started to giggle, which my sister and I joined in. He was always fussy about clothes; everything had to be handmade, even his shoes.
However, let’s get back to Grandfather Roche. He was an old sea salt. Spent his life mostly on and off of boats. Though, when he wasn’t at sea, he was on the stage. He did the Sand Dance and the Clog Dance and sang music hall songs. And I still remember many of them. I was closer to him and Jim than anyone else.
Uncle Jim
Jim said often that when I was born, he went to see my mother and I in hospital and the rain was so heavy and went on and on, that he was wading through flooded roads. He never married, but on going to Belgium on holiday, he met a woman, Augusta, who owned a restaurant and she and her husband had separated. How they first became friends was this way. Jim was a stevedore on the docks, but in his spare time he did boxing. Just before his big fight, he got a poisoned hand. He never got another chance in the ring. Back to Augusta; he saw her place and decided to go in and have a meal. Inside was a bit of bother – a drunk was giving Augusta a hard time. Jim, hackles up, grabbed the guy by the scruff of the neck and threw him out. From then on, he and Augusta were a twosome. They had a daughter named Blanche. She never divorced, but she and Jim lived this way, she in Belgium and him in England. Though he went over very regularly.
Jim was my favourite. He would play tricks on me often. He had what I call a deep brown laugh. One day, when we went there, I heard a noise coming from upstairs. Grandad said it was Jim. He had got himself a mouthorgan and was learning to play it and it was driving him [Grandad] crazy. I was out of the room like a shot and climbed the stairs and found Jim lying on top of the bed trying to play a tune. I sat on the bed beside him and thought at first it was lovely, but after a short while, with all the mistakes and going back to the start, I didn’t stay long. I learnt later that the tune was ‘La Paloma’. He managed to get it after quite a time, then never played it again.
Jim was in the air force during the war. We used to write to each other. He wrote once that he had crashed a plane and he was going to have to pay for it. Always the joker! He made friends with a Scot who I only knew as ‘Sailor’. He thought he was king of the roost until he met Jim, who took no buck from anyone. They got very close once to getting lynched. They put it around, while in Ceylon, that they were going to go one night to the Temple of the Tooth, a very sacred place, and nick the fabulous jewel that was in the forehead of the sacred idol. It caused quite a stir at the time. One thing that did happen while he was there; he went swimming and something grabbed his foot and he had to fight to get away. He managed, but his foot was badly mangled [for] the rest of his life, but he got on with things. If anyone asked ‘how is your foot?’ he always replied ‘what, that old dummy!’ and shrugged.
Aunt Lilian
I only met Lilian once. She had quite a few kids. There used to be an old music hall song called ‘Don’t Have Any More Mrs Moore’ which happened to be her married name.
Then Lilian, who married Harry (I think he was called) – fancied himself a ladies man. During the war he went in the army and fancied himself a right ladies man. They had a daughter. Her name was Shielagh. She was younger than me and was the one that contacted me when Jim died and was furious with my sister because, when Jim died, he left his money to my mother, but if she died before him, it was to be split between my sister and I. As my mother had died, she told the solicitor that I was too has died. Shielagh heard about this and went to the solicitor and told him. He eventually contacted me and I received my half of the money. Shielagh also told me that my sister and her daughter went through his [Jim’s?] flat with a fine-tooth comb, taking away anything they wanted.
Uncle Bob
Bob (I remembered his name – so I should have done, seeing it was short for Robert which was my grandfather’s name) married and moved quite a way away. His wife was snooty.
The Isle of Dogs
The Isle of Dogs was mainly surrounded by the Thames and it was like a village. Now it’s the in place, what with Canary Wharf and building on Pennyfields, which was where the prostitutes used to hang out. Then there was the Chinese Causeway – the whole place around was the area of Chinese and Jews. The Causeway was full of Chinese shops and some of them had opium dens in the basement. One day, I was going along there to buy some fruit – I must have been with another child or my sister because I would not have been alone – when in passing one particular place, bumped into Jim. He was surprised to see me passing but said “Here is sixpence. Don’t tell your mother you have seen me”. I discovered much later that he sometimes went in this place and smoked opium with a pipe sitting or lying around with others.
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Now you have most of the family, but will, I expect, return to them from time to time. Back to me now.
West India Dock Road was fairly long, facing into it with the road before you on the left, going down, was a pub, then some houses, then a police station with a large police yard [and] about three more houses. Then a large Chinese restaurant, very famous in those days – very often frequented by the Duke of Windsor, known by everyone as David or Dave. They would call out ‘Watcha Dave’ and he would wave back and call something saucy back. Then there was a small road leading to East India Dock Road, with a fish and chip shop on the corner. Then, carrying on Pennyfields, then more places and at the end was the gateway into the docks. This is where my father worked. Going back to the beginning, on the right going down was another pub, a Chinese gambling house, a couple of shops, a road leading off, then carrying on, more shops, a barber’s, another road leading off, then a clothes shop, houses, then you had another road, this one leading to Isle of Dogs and, of course, facing you, the dock gates.
Now if you turn around and, keeping on the right-hand side, which is now your left (oh I forgot, where the road was that led to the Isle of Dogs was another pub). Anyway, arriving back at the clothes shop (all the shops were owned by Jews) we often had a laugh about this occasion: a man had twins, a girl and a boy, who he always called Jackala and Beckala. He was outside his shop one day when Dad passed. He was in such a state and Dad asked if he was alright. The chap threw his hands out to my father for him to see how he was still shaking. Then he said, shaking his head, ‘Shocks, they gave me nasty shocks’. Dad said who. The reply was, ‘My Jackala and Beckala. They go for a walk and got lost. Police found them. My Jackala. They pisher themself, they kaka themself. Such states they were in.’ Dad said, ‘But now they are back home safe and sound. Go in. Have a drink and all will be alright.’ It was funny though. They were older than me and I thought they were dirty doing that.
Opposite the clothes shop was No. 70. The front faced the main road opposite the Chinese restaurant and [the] other side was facing the small road. A large three storey house, in fact. We had all the top floor. From the front, we had a good view of all the goings on in the restaurant, and outside at weekends, when the sailors of all nations had their time off and the pros were up to their tricks. One girl always walked around with a basket of laundry. The pros, when they could, would be up against the wall kissing and caressing their chosen one all down their backs, till they reached the back pocket where they would whip out a wallet and the laundry girl would whip it away, pushed under her laundry. We used to sit at our window (all of us), watching all these goings on, on a Saturday night. Dad would make comments and he and my mother would have a good laugh. On one occasion there was a sailor with this pro up against our wall below. As we always had the window open, the more to enjoy the panorama, Dad poked his head out and dodged back in saying to my mother, ‘He’s having a bit of trouble. She’s smaller than him.’ Then he popped his head out again and shouted to the sailor, ‘Hang her on the wall mate’. Quite a few of those sailors were lascars.
In those days, the older Chinese wore the traditional clothes complete with a pigtail and a little black cap, and often walked in single file. On one occasion, Jim was coming to see us. It was evening and he must have had a couple of lemonades, for, seeing a line of them coming towards him, he pretended to stagger and tripped into the lead one, and over the others went. Such a commotion. He was lucky to get out of that. My mother, who had gone to meet him, saw this and was furious and gave him a right telling off.
You may be thinking I had a good memory for one so young. But over the years, she would relate these things – that’s how they stayed in my mind. Sometimes, my father used to send me over to the Chinese restaurant to fetch him back a bowl of chop suey. I would cross the road (there was little traffic those days), where I would go into the kitchen, sit on a stool by a fire while they got the food ready, then one of the younger ones would come with me across the road and carry the bowl. Dad would be on the doorstep waiting to take and pay. The younger Chinese men bought and wore shirts, though they never tucked them in. We used to get a lot of street vendors come around: the muffin man with the tray on his head; the fish man with a car; girls selling lucky heather and others with lavender; the knife sharpener man and, best of all, the organ grinder complete with monkey. He used to bring the kids out with his music and they would dance to the music. Then there was an old couple, who sang. It always seemed to be the same song: ‘Darling, I am growing old, silver threads among the gold’. We, that is my mother and I (Thelma used to be down in the street with her friends.) But the best evening was a Thursday, when Crystal Palace had a firework display.
The policemen always went around in twos, some of them used to nip into the gambling place and have a couple of games of Pucka Hoo. The police yard was quite a big area and all the kids were encouraged to play in this area. My father said I didn’t need to. I never understood why, but there was a reason. I didn’t know it at the time, but each time I was out playing, which wasn’t often, I was always aware of a young Chinaman with two large Alsatians always around. He frightened me to bits, not so much the man, for I liked all the Chinese very much. It was the dogs. I learnt much later that Dad paid for this protection whenever I was out.
One evening though, I could have done with him. I had been invited to a friend’s birthday party, but after a while, I wanted to go home. The girl’s mother was busy with the other kids, so I slipped out and started to make my way home. I was about 6 years old, I suppose. Anyway, I got as far as the Chinese Causeway, when there was a lot of noise going on; shouting and shooting and clashing sounds. I didn’t know what to do when suddenly this man came running up, grabbed hold of me and got us into a fairly deep shop doorway. He pushed me into the corner and stood in front of me, telling me to keep still and very quiet. I was too frightened to do anything else. The noise got louder and I saw knives flashing and men falling down. They carried on by after a little while. The man put his fingers to his lips for me to stay quiet. Then, as the crowd of screaming, shouting men eventually went on down the street, the man grabbed hold of me and holding my arm tight, said, ‘Run!’ In a short time we were at my home. He rang the bell and Mum appeared. She knew the man. He was an old friend of Jim’s. She couldn’t thank him enough. He told her that he had heard there was going to be a tong* fight in the area and couldn’t believe his eyes to see this small kid heading right in the direction of the feud. At first, I was just a little girl in danger, until when he grabbed me. Then he knew who I was and where I lived. I got a right ticking off about leaving the party on my own. Later, when all was quiet, the friend’s father came around to see if I had got home safely. Happy days, eh.
We lived at Limehouse until I was 7½. I had my tonsils out very young. I also got whooping cough very badly at another time. So bad that mother was told by the doctor that I should have a night nurse. Of course, my father had to pay for all medical care. My grandad used to come every day and sit by me and sing his songs. I was red hot one day and kept asking for an ice cream. My mother said I couldn’t in my condition. My grandfather said ‘Rubbish, she couldn’t be worse.’ He cleared off and managed to get an ice cream from somewhere. He fed me with it and I was fortunately on the mend. Then the doctor sent me to the hospital another time, to be examined and they found I had a leaky valve of the heart.
When I was born, Mrs Bulbeski said, ‘Aha, I will be her babushka,’ and always called me Bibla (thought I would explain this) for this was how I arrived at my nickname, which the family turned Bibla into Bibbles, then into Bibs. While I had whooping cough, she used to cook me a bowl of chicken broth and always stood the two legs and feet in the bowl. The doctor at the hospital recommended I went into a quiet convalescent home. My mother, who used to attend the church, became friendly with a priest – Father Dark. He visited me while I was ill. When she told him what the hospital had said, he suggested she and Dad should send me to their convent. Dad had to pay, of course. The first place was at Hazelmere. I only know I was put in a cot. I was there 2 months. Later I went to another convent in Broadstairs. Then later to the one I remember most, at St Leonards on Sea. I went there twice, the second time because Mum had had a stone in the kidney and had an operation. This time I was living in Becontree when I was more or less seven or eight. More of that later.
Back to No.70. One thing I loved was going to Chrisp Street Market, which was off the East India Dock Road. The smells and the patter of the stalls and stall holders; in particular I loved it when it got dark early, for the stalls had flares attached to their stalls. They gave out a bright flame of light and hissed and had a special kind of smell. I didn’t have many friends, mainly because of my health. At first, once, they found the leaky valve, I had to attend hospital every two weeks, then every month, then every three months and lastly every six months. Although, we packed up going once I was 10 or so, because war was declared and I had been evacuated to Bath in Somerset.
The friends I mentioned were a large family. The father had his own business as a coal man and their name was Bass. The main toilet, like all the other places, was in the back yard. One day, the alarm went out. I had gone down the stairs (this was at No.70). Mrs Bulbs went over to the police station and reported me missing. Out they came back to the house and said they had had no luck. One policeman asked if Mrs B would mind him using the toilet. Getting a go ahead reply, he opened the door and there I was sitting on the toilet, fast asleep. They woke me and made a fuss of me, relieved that I was safe and sound.
Up until I was seven, I didn’t get much schooling, in fact very little. My mother helped as much as [she] could, so did the nuns, though all the girls (there were 12 in all) were the same. I was there because of health reasons – I’m talking about St Leonards. That was the only place clear in my mind. We 12 girls slept in a dormitory. Each morning, two girls made all the beds, then the next two the following morning and so on till it was your turn again. Each evening, the nuns gave us a bath, then the next wash and hair wash and so on. Each morning one nun would take us walking in twos to the beach for a long walk. We called her, behind her back, Sister See, because she always finished a sentence with ‘see’. I was happy enough there though. While we were there, our own clothes were washed, ironed, labelled and put away until we left to go home. We had to wear a sort of uniform – navy blue I think it was. But I do remember the cloaks; red with a hood. We must have looked like a lot of red riding hoods. None could have been a perfect fit, but that was what we had to wear. Our own night clothes were permitted. Another walk was in a large park-cum-woods. Food was plain but edible. Much praying, of course. Afternoons were rest time Then a short session of activity – dancing and lively games, but only for those who were able. I wasn’t one. We just sat and watched. But it was lively and often very funny. No, I wasn’t unhappy there. Twice I was sent there, the second time because my mother had to go into hospital to have an operation: stone in her kidney. It was Christmas. My father sent along a big hamper of goodies to share with the other kids. The nuns bought little presents for us. The only thing which was a bore was spending quite a lot of the day in the church listening to a nativity play that was quite beyond us kids. But that was life there. I wasn’t unhappy.
Becontree
Then, surprise, surprise, when I went home I attended school because we had then moved to Becontree. My father had gone off one day (this is when we were still in the East End). When he came home, he said that he had been to Becontree in Essex and had viewed two council houses and we would be going back to see them and choosing one (joke). (The choosing bit – he always told us what we were doing, like it or not.) Like this occasion, when we liked the first one, but he liked the second and that is what we had – 248 Sheppey Road. It had a small front, a large porch that covered our front door and next door’s front door. The house had a lounge, kitchen with door to back garden. The passage had a large cupboard which went under the stairs. A window on the bend of the stairs, which led up to two bedrooms and bathroom. In the corner of the kitchen stood a boiler. When you had your baths, you filled the boiler, lit the gas and when the water was hot enough, you turned off the gas, pushed down a strong lead pipe then pushed a fairly large wooden handle and when you pumped, the water went straight up into the bath upstairs. This was thought to be very modern at the time. We only took personal things with us when we moved. Prior to this, my father had gone to an old family friend who owned a furniture shop and ordered all the furniture we needed: Young Tom, who was only a bit younger than my father, because there was Tom’s father who also was called Young Tom. I think my father’s family were Jewish because there was a certain time in the year when you changed everything and Young Tom did all of that. Dad would call into his shop before this time, arrange for what we had to be taken away and deliver the new stuff Dad chose. Fortunately, he only did this to the lounge and cooking utensils.
For the first time I had a back garden to play in. It was quite long and the underground trains ran along. When we first moved there it was quite a novelty to watch the trains go by. The day after we moved in, I was in the garden when a boy’s voice said ‘Hello’. I looked round and over the fence was the boy next door. He was two years older than me. From then on, we were inseparable. I’ll always remember that first day. For some reason, on that first day while we were chatting, God knows why (to show off I suppose), I said, ‘I can sing like Shirley Temple’ (she was the well-known child film star). He said, ‘Can you? Go on then.’ And trying to sound and act like her, I sang ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’. He thought it was just like her and often he would sing that song again. We were always together. If you saw one, you saw the other. He spent a lot of time in our house and my father treated him like an adopted son.
His name was Bobby Burke and we had other friends we played out with, but always together. His parents were not that well off and his mother brought some money for them by doing people’s washing every Monday. It was Bobby’s job to walk into Barking with his Dad’s best suit to the pawn brokers. Then on the Friday, get it out again. Every week this went on. Once we had met, I would go with him. One day, he called for me – not only had he got the suit, but was dragging a box on wheels. He had got some pram wheels from somewhere, a plank of wood and a roomy box. A length of rope was attached to the front. His father made it up for him. From then on, this was our chariot. I would sit in the box while he used the end part of the plank like a scooter, holding the rope which guided the wheels. All this to save me from walking. Great fun!
Sheppey Road was a long one, with a tube station at the end of it. In our part of the road, we had what was then called a banjo, which was an old name for a close. So, our section of kids used this as our playground. We played marbles, flipping cards (you stood some up against a wall and flicked others towards them – the idea was to knock them all down), skipping, a couple of kids had balls (mainly boys) and played their version of football; the girls would bring out dolls. Various things we did. The people living on the banjo never ever complained, for they’d rather we played there than in the road. In the middle of the banjo, on the pavement, was one street light. When the evenings began to draw in and it came on, we would sit around it and relate jokes that we had read in comics, talked about films we had seen. About these films – we all met up on a Saturday morning, go off to the station, pay our fare to Upton Park, the next station along, and go to the 2d rust [?] (two pennies) there, sit through the films till midday; all the films were in serial form so we were always agog to find out what happened next from last week’s episode (when we sat under the lamppost during the week, we would each give our thoughts on what it may be, many quite weird and wonderful and entirely wrong). It was always noisy in the cinema. Shouts of ‘he’s behind you’ and ‘don’t go in there’, ‘we told you’. Sometimes it was deadly quiet with some films. One in particular was scary, called The Clutching Hand. When all was over, back home we went to our lunches. Simple pleasures but we were happy.
At last I was going to school. Mounteagle it was called and the uniform was dark green. I enjoyed it there but for a time I had to put up with some bullying. I had been taught to turn the other cheek by the nuns, but it was my mother and Bobby who put a stop to it. Bobby went to a different school, but he always seemed to be there at home time. On a Friday, before Dad came home, he went to market in Barking and brought home lots of fruit. He would stand at the sink and wash and dry it all, give it a polish with a soft cloth, then place it all in glass fruit bowls. He also brought home sweets for me and Thelma – different ones, so it was always a nice surprise. For my mother, he brought chocolate liqueurs. Also, for me, a pile of different comics, which were passed on to Bobby; he in turn passed them on. You could see us sitting down on the pavement in the banjo – only when the weather was fine or they passed them out to where they lived. They got a bit tatty but that didn’t matter to them and [they] looked forward to the following week.
Saturdays would be Dad’s other shopping day. Sometimes to a tailors and have my mother and sister choose a pattern from swatches of cloth; to each select their material and be measured for a costume, each to be made. Or he would see something sometimes on his way home for my mother. The one item I absolutely adored was a black, full length Astrakhan coat. Astrakhan was a dark curly fleece of lambs from Russia. She looked great in it. Then there was me – he was regularly taking me to another Jewish friend of his who had a children’s clothes shop, to be fitted out. Most Saturdays, something was always going on. We would catch a Green Line bus and go to Southend on Sea for the day, or bus or tram into London or to Ilford to the dog racing. I used to be fascinated by the tick tack men making their secret signs. Dad used to tell me off for watching them, which was daft because I didn’t know what it all meant. Mum used to be good with her bets, considering she hadn’t a clue about their pedigree. She would go for things like a dog would have two black legs and two grey or one she thought had a longer nose than the others and stood a good chance [of] winning by a nose. When she did pick a winner, she got all excited like a kid.
I’m going back a moment to 70 West India Dock Road. Mum and Dad used to go dancing. Mum was good at the Charleston. On these occasions, I was looked after by Thelma and Pat and on this particular day they went to the cinema and smuggled me in. The film – well I never forgot it – was Boris Karloff in Dracula. I had nightmares for some time and my father was furious with them. Thelma was always spiteful to me and as I grew older, would often put me down, particularly in front of her friends. Mind you, she was a good looker.
Jaywick Sands
Becontree again. One summer, Dad booked a bungalow for a week to Jaywick Sands, a pretty seaside resort then. On the beach was a stage and lots of seats and the man who ran the show was Uncle something (can’t remember his name) and he ran a talent show. One day, Dad and Mum were going for a walk. Dad said to me, ‘Why don’t you go and watch the show and we will pick you up later.’ So, I watched various kids go on stage and do their bit, after which Uncle gave them a stick of rock and the people would applaud. One boy went up and recited a long poem and each verse finished with ‘Blow blast spit and stomach’. That has stuck with me always. At the time, I thought it was terrible saying that, though God knows why, but I found myself stumbling up the stairs and falling down at his feet. He picked me up and said, ‘What are you going to do, dear?’ By which time, I was red in the face and wanted to run away, but I managed to stutter ‘be Greta Garbo.’ ‘How lovely, isn’t that nice’ to the crowd. ‘Yes’ they yelled back. I got into a pose, hands on hips and fluttered my eyelashes and said, thinking I sounded like her, ‘I want to be alone.’ He said, ‘I don’t blame you, dear’ and helped me down the steps to my seat. When he got back on stage, he said, ‘Well I suppose it was worth something’, broke a stick of rock in half and threw one half down to me. I got a bit of applause. Red with shame, I looked back and found to my shame, Dad and Mum had arrived back and had seen it all. They were laughing their heads off. Oh! The shame of it.
When we first arrived, I had noticed a cricket bat and ball. Somebody must have left it behind. It stood in a corner. At the end of the week, still no-one had enquired about it, so we took it with us and when we got home, the first thing we did was give it to Bobby. He was very proud of it and we used to play our version of cricket in the street. He was very fussy about how you used it. I was still having to attend hospital every six months now. Our group of kids still enjoyed ourselves. In those days you could walk down a road opposite our house, cross another road and down to the main road. The traffic was sparse compared to later years. On the other side was a pub called The Ship and Shovel (that needed to be said slowly), then fields leading for a fair walk to a large power station on the banks of the Thames. We didn’t go down there often, mainly with my father to watch ships pass by. What interested us kids were the many streams that ran over the field. The boys made rough rafts and we would get on them and paddle with a limb broken off [a] tree. The streams were very shallow at the part we played. During the winter, a fun fair used to be there, but nearer the main road where these streams seemed to fizzle out.
It was around this time that Bobby was taken ill and, like me, attended hospital on a regular basis. The following year, Dad kept on about buying a car but never did. Our neighbours the other side of us were called Musslewhite. He was Arthur and she was called Blossom. They had one son. She spent most of her time standing in her part of the porch, drinking endless cups of tea, having a good old gossip with anyone who went by. Anyway, Arthur offered to buy a car through his firm, which was a big car manufacturer. A well-known make, though for the life of me I can’t remember the name although it was a famous one (Ford?). But when it came to the push, Dad backed off, so no car.
Isle of Sheppey
The following year, we went on holiday to Minster, Isle of Sheppey. Dad rented a bungalow called Rookery Nook. I remember it had a record player, but only one record and that was
‘I’m Popeye the Sailor Man’. As the record player was a new sort of entertainment, Dad decided he would get one. We went into Leysdown, back then it was only beach with an ice cream cart on it. We caught a train to get there. This railroad ran across the island from Sheerness to Leysdown and back.
Back home, though, things were not too happy for me. Bobby had put on quite a bit of weight when he was eventually taken into hospital. After a while, his mother told my mother that he was asking to see me so would my mother let her take me to see him. Mother said yes and I went. I hardly recognised him, and apart from an occasional word, we held hands. We left after a while and on leaving the ward, I looked back but he had his eyes closed. Later that day, he died. He had had heart dropsy. It took me a long time to get over it. We had been so close. At school, they set up a choir and I was one to be chosen. I enjoyed this very much. It helped me through this time.
Flash Backs Back to the East End. In 1935, it was King George the V and Mary’s Silver Jubilee. They drove around London where crowds of people lined the streets to see them go by in an open carriage. Another friend of Dad’s had a shop. The shop stuck out from the main part of the house and had a kind of flat roof which they put up a kind of barrier around. We put chairs out. It was like sitting on a veranda. When the carriage came along, we cheered and waved. The Queen spotted us and caught the attention of the King and they both smiled and waved to us. We made our way home and found the streets [??] every after they passed through [??] the side streets had set up ??? someone pulled out a piano and had a great time. Every child was given a mug with the date and the occasion and their portraits on. Don’t know what became of mine. It was never used.
Another thing was, although it had happened some while before, it was still on the mind of the East Enders and that was about Jack the Ripper.
Another thing often referred to was the Siege of Sidney Street – a group of Russian dissidents who had holed up in one of the houses. The army was called in with Winston Churchill in charge. They cut off any exit and guns were fired.
At Madame Tussauds, they had done a model of Mrs Simpson, but people were so outraged at this divorced American woman causing the Duke of Windsor to abdicate, that people tried to smash it. Fortunately for Tussauds, they had put the model way back and chained around and someone watching it.
Back to Becontree. Round about 1938, there had been a lot of talk about a German who had become Germany’s Chancellor – Adolf Hitler. The talk was of war. Our Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, went to Germany for talks with Hitler. He came back to cheering crowds, waving a piece of paper in his hand saying it read [??] Hitler’s word that he had no intention of making war on our island. People cheered but by what was being read in the newspapers, this was untrue. That led to what was called ‘the crisis’.
(Flashback) Writing about papers, all our news and entertainment came from the radio. No TV those days. On the radio was Radio Luxemburg, which we always listened to – lots of serials, Uncle Mac and the Ovalteenies. I joined their club and got a badge and a news letter. Lots of children participated in the show.
Becontree
Back to Becontree. The thought of war was on everyone’s mind. After all, it hadn’t been all that long ago there had been war. Something like 20/25 years earlier, known later as the First World War. There was a lot of unrest in the people. One day, Mum and I were going to the local shops. All was fine, going and shopping. It was on the way back we hit trouble. There were a lot of men fighting. Oswald Moseley and his fascist Black Shirts were spouting their rubbish and workers were fighting with them. It was uproar. Mosley was imprisoned during the (1940-43) war. We slipped down a side road but Mum was very upset and nervous.
Evacuation – Bath
In 1939, I was 11 years old. I was getting on quite well at school. Time went on, then the government introduced evacuation. By this time, Hitler had occupied Czechoslovakia. Germany invaded Poland. Britain declared war on 3rd September 1939. Many of the Conservatives rebelled against Chamberlain’s leadership and he resigned. Churchill then became Prime Minister. Chamberlain joined Churchill’s Cabinet, but resigned a dying man in October 1940. We were given letters to take home from school asking parents if they were willing to have their child or children evacuated. The choice was somewhere in England or America. Dad put me down for England. Later, we were given another letter saying what we were to take with us, packed in a haversack, clothes etc. Day after day went on, then one morning there were lots of buses and we all had labels pinned on our coats. We were driven to the station. Some mothers living near the school found out what was going on and word got around. My mother heard what was happening, but it was too late for her to get to the school. But she had been told we were being driven to the local station for our journey into London, so she went to the bottom of our garden and waited for the tube train to go past. Fortunately, I was that side by the window and we waved to each other. It was quite a while before we saw each other again, though once she was informed as to where I was and who with, I received many letters from both parents.
Flashback When the talk was all of war, the Mother Superior wrote to my father asking him if he wanted the convent to take me in. Dad wrote back a very nice letter and told her he had arranged for me to be evacuated with the school. To my mother, he said ‘No fear. We don’t know how long the war will last. She would be taking orders to be a nun.’ St Leonard’s convent was badly bombed early in the war and I believe had a direct hit.
We arrived in London at one of the big stations and were put onto the steam trains. It was then a lot of the kids started crying. One girl in our carriage was all right until a teacher came in and told us we were going to Bath, which meant nothing to us. This girl started to cry saying ‘I don’t like bathing on trains.’ Where the hell she had had a bath on a train I’ll never know.
Flashback (Flashback to East End) One day Mr Bulas and my father took me up onto the roof of the house and, after a short while, watched a German Zeppelin fly over. Quite a sight. It later turned out that it was the one that burst into flames when it reached America.
On arrival at Bath, there were relays of coaches and cars taking us to different school halls. There, we were given a drink and sandwiches, then one by one our names were called and we were taken off to different addresses and left with the occupants. Next day, we again returned to the hall where we were given a paper stating which school we would be going to. The hall we were taken to was a church hall and the school I had been allocated to was a church school, called Walcot School. The house I had been taken to was a couple – Mr and Mrs Biss. She was pregnant. Their house was half way up a hill in an area called Fairfield Park. It had a large wood at the top of this avenue which was called Queenwood Avenue. All in all, there were 22 evacuees in that one avenue.
After a few weeks, on a Sunday at 3 o’ clock September 3rd 1939, everyone was listening to their radios waiting for the news that everyone feared. That statement ended with ‘We are at war with Germany’. Tears were shed by the women. The men gathered together making suggestions on what they would be doing because they knew that many of them would be conscripted. Within the month, kids were being taken home until out of 22 kids in the avenue, only 2 or us remained. The parents of the others thought if Germany started bombing, it would happen all over, so their kids were just as well at home with them as anywhere else. There were quite a few left who were billeted in other roads and we settled into our various schools.
Rationing was introduced and many products were no longer available. We lived more spartan lives but it so happened that we were healthier then. To get to the school we had to go down the avenue, then a short level walk, then down a steep hill called Snow Hill to the main road. Cross that, then a bit of a walk and finally the school. Not too bad going to school, but a bit of a devil going up the hills to our foster homes.
Then, in I think it was 1940, came a very severe winter with snow and ice. All the houses then had front railings and the men fixed ropes on them. This was before the government said all railings etc. were to be taken down and made into things for the war effort. But at that time, while they were still there, the ropes were the only way to get up and down. Some of the younger women that wanted to get their shopping slid down to the bottom of the avenue on tea trays. Then came the big struggle getting back up. The men, those that hadn’t been conscripted, then went down by rope and waited for their wives, taking the bags of shopping from them while the wives carried their tea trays and struggled back up to their homes. Many trees in the woods were thick with ice and many branches just snapped off. For us kids though, no school.
Everyone got a ration book and a clothing coupon book. That started the ‘make do and mend’. Also, the government gave out recipe leaflets. Lots of food disappeared, like bananas. They introduced some sort of fish in tins called Snook. It was horrible. Rationing had been introduced in January 1940. The basic rations were meat, fats, sugar, eggs and cheese. This system continued until 1954. I still have my ration book. Marguerite Patten used to do leaflets for the Ministry of Food.
Mrs Biss went into hospital and so I had to be moved. I went to a Mr and Mrs Bryant. They lived near the bottom of the avenue. Mrs Bryant’s sister lived next door and had a girl and a boy round about my age, the boy a bit older. I wasn’t keen on Mrs Bryant, but liked her husband Tot. Her name was Sylvia and she had one boy not very old. It came to light that a lot of baby farming went on and had been for years. Her father had about 10 waifs and strays in all. They used to say they would give children a home and were given a tidy sum for taking them on. That was the racket – they got money, bought their houses etc. This old man bought several houses this way and he had some girls who were more like servants. He professed to being a religious man. Every Sunday we had to go to chapel in the morning, Sunday school for us younger ones in the afternoon and church in the evening. Between chapel and Sunday school we all went to his house for dinner. He would turn on the radio for the news and no-one was to speak. The church was called Walcot Church and was opposite my school. He had a small orchard, mainly apple trees, and we were allowed to pick one each from a tree, when they were ripe of course. That was when I first tasted an apple called Beauty of Bath. Lovely. Never seen them since.
At Walcot Church I got friendly with one of the choir boys, Dennis Wood. No oil painting but kind and funny. Another way of getting back to Queenwood Avenue was to go through a park and along a main road, avoiding Snow Hill. It was a longer way. Dennis asked the old man his permission to walk me home, which he granted. So, each Sunday, we walked that way. He would tell me jokes and what they did at his school, which was different to mine. Our friendship lasted until I left Bath. Then one day Dennis told me about a kind of youth club held in the crypt of the church, run by the vicar. It was great fun and Dennis always saw me home.
1940 The Battle of Britain; Churchill was now Prime Minister. His speeches were great. They fixed loudspeakers on lampposts in the city. People and what traffic there was would stop to listen and at the end, a big cheer would go up, and shouts of ‘Good old Winny’. The only one I can quote was after the Battle of Britain. I was only a kid, but it was very moving. In his deep kind of voice, he spoke quite slowly and it went like this: ‘Never in the field of human conflict have so many owed so much to so few.’ That’s always stuck with me. So many of the airmen were under the age of 20.
The same year, Dunkirk was evacuated. Anyone who had a boat, no matter what it was, went out in the biggest rescue mission in history to take our soldiers off the beaches. They had a guard of naval vessels firing at the enemy. Also, to help give the little boats time to get as many as they could off the beaches and head for home. Also, that year, the Bismark, the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were sunk.
Going back to the Bryants, I was there for a while. Tot, when he was at home, used to take me with him fishing the Avon. He was doing important war work so was exempt from joining up. Now for ‘dear’ Sylvia: she had something wrong with her stomach and it swelled up. But she told everyone that she was pregnant. Now this was where we got a taste of the system where the caper of baby farming comes in. She contacted social services or whoever it was these women went to and reported that she was having a lot of trouble with me. As an evacuee, she had received her money for taking me on. Now she wanted some more.
One day, this woman arrived and asked me all sorts of questions; where did I go when I went out with boys and came in later than I should and did I think it clever telling lies; why didn’t I behave myself and not give cheek to Mrs Bryant when she had given me a good home. It went on and on – all sorts of things. She had me in tears when she finished. I was then told to go to my room and I heard her say to dear Sylvia, ‘I’ll write out a report and pass it on to my boss and he will contact me with what we think should happen to her. It may be a couple of weeks, because so many of these children are like this.’ I went to my room. I want to say at this point that my father used to send me writing paper, envelopes and stamps for me to keep in touch with them. Sylvia used to read my letters home to see what I said. This time I wrote in secret then hid it. I’ll always remember that letter. Tears were dripping on the paper and around each one I put a line and put tear, tear. I smuggled it out the next day and posted it on my way to school.
I was picked out to be in school choir. One day I was singing in my bedroom. Suddenly the door opened and she rushed in saying, ‘Who have you got up here?’ I said no-one. She said, ‘Telling lies again. I heard someone singing. I suppose you have been messing about with the wireless.’ I said ‘No, it was me.’ ‘Liar,’ she screamed. With that she slammed the door and went down stairs. A few days later I came out of school and there were my parents and Thelma. I can’t tell you how I felt when I saw them. I know I cried. Imagine D.S.’s face when she opened the door and saw us all on the doorstep. There I was with my family, dressed to their usual smart fashion. Even I couldn’t keep my eyes off Thelma’s coat. It was black, full length, with a large silver fur collar. Dear Sylvia was speechless. Dad raised his hat and introduced them. ‘Please come in,’ she said. We went inside. Dad told her that they had come to sort out this problem she had with regards to me. He also told her that the bombing had been very bad; in fact, the docks were the targets and he now had no work. So, they would find a place there in Bath. They were not going back and he said that he would be there when the social woman came. She offered them tea, which they accepted. During tea (they had already had a meal before meeting me from school), she was all over them. After a while, he said ‘Well, we will be off now to find somewhere to stay before night.’ ‘You can stay here’ D.S. Said. ‘I have the room. Tot is away. You can have his room and your other daughter can share the bed with her sister.’ ‘Thank you’ said Dad. ‘I do want to be here when that woman calls.’ He was really laying it on. Mum said later to him, ‘You laid it on a bit, didn’t you?’ Dad said,’ Nothing to what I will do when I’ve got them both together.’
Later, when she left us alone, Dad asked me about school and church and about the old man who lived next door. This old fellow was always in his garden pottering about. He would talk to me over the fence. It took me a long time to understand him for he had the broadest accent I’d ever heard. He was an old Somerset man. Dad would get me to mimic him and roar with laughter. Lots of it I’ve forgotten, but one thing he said has always stuck in my mind for later. Before the family arrived, I was in the garden feeling very sorry for myself and afraid of what would happen when the social woman came back. He looked at me for a while, then quietly said,’ Tha dursant look so ell as tha wast do it.’ Later he asked me if I would go into his place and help him with a little job. I asked madam if I could and she said yes. I suppose she thought this was more grist to the mill she could report to the social. I went into the garden and the old man took me into a large green house in which he had a big grape vine. Bunches and bunches of grapes hung there. He said, ‘I’ll pick them and you pack them because I can’t bend so much now.’ So, he picked and I gently laid them in boxes he had there. He told me he sent them to a local hospital and someone would come for them. I enjoyed working with the old man. He gave me a large bunch for what I had done. Needless to say, madam soon took them away from me. I thought what an awful woman she was.
But over the years, you heard a lot of stories about ill treatment to evacuees; beaten, made skivvies of, and if they were on farms, many tasks had to be done before they went to school, also when they returned. Some ran away trying to find their homes. So, all in all, I was fairly lucky. Mind you, many found very good homes and as war dragged on, the longer they stayed, the less they wanted to go back to London. My family stayed a while at the Bryant’s house. Dad had sorted out madam Bryant and the so-called social worker, who couldn’t apologise enough and madam saying she had got it all wrong. Dad scoffed at this, but let it go. Tot put in his bit as well and had a right go at madam. He was a very gentle sort of man. He taught me how to fish. We used to fish the Avon, the river ran through the town by the Empire Hotel where I was going to work in the Admiralty later, though I didn’t know it then. Tot used to go for eels to take home and cook, so the main thing he taught me was how to handle a live eel. Tot had come home from one of his long runs. He was insistent that my family stayed until they found somewhere to live.
Dad got a very good job at the Admiralty. Then shortly after, the son of the old boy next door came to tell us that his father had died. I was upset about that. The son, when asked what he would do with the house, said he would sell it at some time, but meanwhile he would look for a tenant. Tot right away said to Dad, ‘ Wouldn’t it do for you?’ And so that’s what happened. After the son had cleared out the personal things and had the place cleaned, we moved in. Dad then told Mum and Thelma to also try the Admiralty, which they did. Thelma went to the same place as Dad, which was outside Bath in the countryside. Mum went to a place in Bath, up in the hills, and worked for a Commander Farquarson. She made a friend of another woman there called Betty. They were part-timers, so their afternoons were spent together. They went to the cinema, theatres, whist drives and tea dances. Although, once a month, they went to Wells to visit Betty’s husband who was in an institution there, having had a bad break down. I can’t remember any of us eating at home those days.
Going back to my being in the choir. We took part in the Bath Music Festival, which was always strongly contested. We came second. We sang two songs and I always said the second song frightened the life out of the audience, that they in fact had to give good points – it was called ‘Old Woman Sat on the Churchyard Wall’ – especially as they dimmed the lights and we made it as scary as we could.
When we moved to Bath, I rarely saw Dad once he was in the Admiralty. Seven days a week he seemed to work. He was up and gone before we got up and we were in bed before he came in. One weekend, he didn’t even know Thelma and I had gone to London. We stayed with a friend of Mum’s. That was the one and only time I slept in an Anderson shelter sunk into the garden away from the house. The smell of earth and insects and worms crawling around were not conducive to a good night’s sleep. The next day we and the friend’s daughters went into London. What a mess. We were having a look around when we heard this strange noise and then silence. People around where shouting ‘Hit the ground!’. We threw ourselves to the ground. Then came an almighty crash. That was the first and last time we experienced the flying bomb or Doodle Bug, as it was nicknamed. We tailed it back to Bath pretty damn quick. I’ve remembered the name of Mum’s friend – it was Lily and she had two or three girls and a boy. The son was in the army and was a prisoner of war later. Then came Grace and two other girls.
I did go again with a girlfriend and again stayed with Lily. Just like before, we arrived Saturday and went back Sunday. This time we stayed around the house. They lived opposite a pub. We were looking out the window when I saw this good-looking young sailor with an older man, having their drink outside, like others were doing. I said to Grace, ‘He’s a cracker.’ She said, ‘Come on let’s go over and have a drink. I see him quite a bit and we are on nodding terms.’ So, over the three of us went, Grace, myself and my friend (sometimes names are forgotten, as on this occasion). Anyway, as we neared the two men, they said ‘Hello’ to Grace and to us and asked if we would like a drink. They insisted, so we thanked them and said we would only have a shandy. It turned out it was father and son. The father introduced themselves to us. I was a bit taken aback by their names. The young good-looking sailor was called Alex and the father just said his surname. I was quite taken aback at his surname as it was Schnieder, a good old German name. We spent quite a while with them. They were great company. When we said we were going and that it had been nice meeting them, Alex asked if he could write to me. I gave him my name and address and left. We wrote to each other for a while, then nothing. I later learned Alex’s ship had been sunk and Alex was one of those who lost their lives. I felt so sorry for his father, for they were very close.
Going back on the train, it was packed with members of the forces. Many offered us their seats, but we refused and stood in the corridor with some other girls. To pass the time, we started singing the latest songs and enjoying ourselves. There was a man standing by us listening. We ignored him, but it was unsettling. After a while, he took a card from his pocket and came and gave it to me. The card said he was a talent agent and gave an address and phone number. He said, ‘I’ve been listening to you and would like you to contact me.’ I gave him back the card and said, ‘Pity.’ I was glad that his station was coming up and he got off. Well, you never know, do you. I could have been another Vera Lynn ha ha. (I’ve remembered my friend’s name – it was Cicely Thursfield.)
Another time, we heard of a piano concert in a church hall. We went along and the place was packed. The seating was ordinary chairs, so we had to make our way to the back and stand. On our way through the gangway was sitting a young sailor with some friends. As we passed, this sailor touched my arm and said, ‘I would give you my seat but I’ve just got over pneumonia. But you are welcome to sit on my lap’, which I did and Cicely sat on his friends lap. His name was Bob Oakley and he was on the Russian run. It was a great evening.
By this time, I was also working in the Admiralty. Having, on leaving school, worked in a florist’s shop. Another one of Dad’s ideas. I’ll just spend a moment explaining this. Dad was an ‘always going to’ man. Before the war, he was going to buy a car. Nothing came of that. He was going to do something but it never happened. This time, he thought it would be nice to have a flower shop, so I was told to work in a florist’s and get experience. Then one evening he told me he had arranged for me to take a test to get into the Admiralty. You had no say with him, you just did as you were told. I passed the test, much to my amazement, signed the Secrets Act and was in.
I worked first of all in the Empire Hotel which, like a lot of places in Bath, was taken over by the Admiralty. It was highly secret. The outside was surrounded with barbed wire and armed men patrolled outside. We all had to wear identity discs around our necks. My first job was in the dispatch department. We had to make up dispatches cases ready to send to all the top brass with their secret papers. Then Wrens on motorbikes would arrive to take the cases away. All of these women were from the aristocracy though a more smashing bunch of girls you could ever wish to meet. After a while, I was transferred to the Print Department, which was situated in a very large private house up in the hills and nearer to where we lived. We working in a very large front room. It contained all around the walls large metal cabinets which contained every name of every ship of every kind that was on our side. Whenever one was sunk, we had to find it in the files, take it out and delete it. Another department then had the task of writing to the families of sailors lost at sea. We also worked on addressograph machines and printed out other things. If there was a big do on, we worked late to get in all the information regarding crew etc.
I was still going out with Bob. I know he was back on the Russian run. I must have been in my early teens. He was going to be 21 that Christmas and he wanted to make it a double celebration by us getting engaged. I told him my father wouldn’t allow it, but if he’d wait till I was a bit older, we could tackle him then. Reluctantly, that was agreed. I got on very well with his family. One day at work, with Christmas not far off, my friend in the office said, ‘What was the name of your boyfriend’s ship?’ I told her and she passed me the paper saying that his ship had been attacked and sunk with no survivors. It was an oil tanker. It was a hell of a shock and I was supposed to be going shopping with Bob’s mother. I phoned her and made some excuse. I couldn’t face her knowing what I did, for it was more than I dare to tell her. It was bad enough when she was officially notified. She phoned me at work, begging me to tell her it wasn’t true, that it was a mistake. By this time, we were both crying. I was so upset, because it would be breaking the Secrets Act I had signed and I would have been in real trouble. I just blurted out perhaps it was a mistake and there may have been some survivors. She quietened down then and rang off. I met her quite a few times more. Always she talked about Bob coming home and having his 21st birthday late. What do you say? I wasn’t mature enough to help her through it. Her daughter understood my situation. We gradually stopped seeing each other.
Around this time, the Yanks were over here. They were all over the place – you couldn’t walk down a street without them whistling at you and passing comments. It got so bad that parents and husbands complained to their officers and it stopped. Around this time, one of our young girls hadn’t come into work for a couple of days and, as no-one had heard from her, our boss got in touch with her mother who told him that she knew she was staying the night at friends, but had assumed she had been to work. It turned out that she had got off with a Yank for a couple of days. When she did show up at work, the boss gave her a right old lecture. Then he said to her, me and another younger one, ‘Right, at lunch break, I want the three of you downstairs.’ This was the servants’ quarters when it was a private house, though then it was store rooms. We trooped down there wondering why we were told to go down there. We soon found out. He started by saying he knew how the Yanks were behaving and was going to teach us one or two martial art throws, which we learnt.
Many years later, when Paul was young, something came up about Judo etc. and I told him I can remember one throw. ‘Show me,’ he said. So, I did and threw him over my shoulder as I told him to attack me from behind. I don’t know who was the most surprised, him or me. I was frightened, really, in case I had hurt him. Do you know I think I can still do it if I got into a tough situation? Thelma attacked one who was pestering her, with her umbrella.
Anyway, after a time, it all settled down. They got the message. As for me, I still went to a club in the crypt. One evening, Dennis said to me, ‘Do you remember Sam Coleman?’ I said, ‘Of course I do.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘He has started up a club in the school. How about us going?’ So, we went there – quite a few chaps and girls. Sam was so different when he wasn’t a school master. During the better weather, we used the playground. Of course, there was cricket and football for the boys, tennis and netball for the girls. In the winter, we had darts, table tennis, cards and forfeits. But at the weekend in summer, one of the lad’s father owned a row boat yard. So, some of us used to chip in and row some boats (we got them cheap) and the boys would row us up the canal to Barnford Park where there was a lido. The rest of the gang preferred to walk along the banks to get there. There was a pub there, but we only had lemonade. Some of them went swimming. A real nice time was had by all. Often, we would do a swap going back; those that didn’t have the money for the boat were given the ride back, while the others walked. We used to swing along singing our favourite songs. Good fun.
Talking about singing, a group of us girls used to go to the pump room sometimes. It had a sprung floor which was lovely to dance on. During the interval, we used to sit at the tables. This time it was near the stage. We knew when the interval was to come and were already sitting down when the last song of the first half started. It was one of my favourites, so I started to sing it. The band, or orchestra as it called itself, left the stage for a break. We were having a chat and a laugh when Arthur Clark came by and said, looking at me, ‘You don’t want to sit there singing. Get up there and do it!’ You can imagine the mates I was with started geeing me on. Anyway, on his way back, Arthur said,’ Come, give us a song.’ I must have been mad, but the girls wouldn’t let me chicken out. Arthur asked me what the song would be. I said, ‘You’ll never know just how much I miss you.’ ‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘That’s one of our usual ones.’ The question was, had I ever used a mike. He was a bit taken back when I said ‘yes’.
I’ll explain: when I worked for the admiralty, us young ones had to attend technical college one day a week. It was for a bit of higher education. The tutor we had decided to put on a musical show. Can’t remember for what occasion. Anyway, it never came off. But this is the point. She had acquired a microphone. In those days, it was rather heavy and fairly large and fixed to a stand and you had to stand a certain distance from it. So, I knew what to do.
The band always finished up with the Anniversary Waltz, which most of the dancers joined in with. I sang with Arthur several times but there were so many other things going on, I packed in. He was never short on singers, though.
By this time, the Yanks had all quietened down and would invite girls to go to their dances. They held them in their camps and we were picked up by lorries. You should have seen the food laid out on tables. Did we tuck in, and took some home! I was allowed to go by my mother so long as it was with Thelma and her friend, being older to look after me. On one occasion, this particular band was playing and the conductor said, ‘Anyone’s welcome to come up and give us a tune.’ My dear sister, in her usual spiteful way, said to me, ‘You fancy you can sing. Give us a sample, then,’ and pushed me forward. The guy helped me up on stage. I was fuming. She was intent on making me look a fool. The guy asked me if I knew Besame Mucho. Fortunately, it was one of my favourites. I sang it then beat it off the stage to quite a bit of applause. My sister, with a smirk on her face said, ‘Not bad, but I’ve heard a lot better.’
The last and final time I went anywhere with her was one of the American clubs, which was having a dance. It was evening dress. Pat, who was staying with us at the time, made me a long skirt of black-out material. Everyone could get this to put up at the windows to stop any light getting through and from what we now call charity shops. People donated things and the money went toward the war effort. I saw this piece of green material with a silver thread running through. I bought it and Pat made a pretty blouse. I wore sandals with it all. Thelma and her friend didn’t wait for me that night and I had to go on my own. When I arrived, they were waiting near the door. When I went up to them, Thelma eyed me up and down and burst out laughing. ‘Good God’, she said, ‘what a mess you look. You’ll show us up.’ She was very loud about it and it drew attention to me. I felt awful. I know I went bright red and close to tears. I lifted my skirt, ran out of the place and all through the woods home, still grizzling. Plus, it was eerie, but I had to get home. All my mother said was, ‘You shouldn’t have taken any notice of her and stayed.’ Pat said that it had been unkind and uncalled for. From then on, I didn’t have much to do with my dear sister.
Back to the war. Every adult was expected to do one night’s fire watching. A roster was drawn up, if you were too old or handicapped you were exempt. Both Dad and my sister did theirs where they worked, so that left Mum, who didn’t do it at her work. The Commander got her off because of me. Anyhow, the first time Mum went, I went with her and after that I went with her every time. That first night is still very clear in my mind. The lookout post was at the top of the avenue and on the edge of the wood. We went this first night. When we got to the top of the avenue, we were met by an air-raid warden. He showed us the command post, which held first aid gear and firefighting equipment. We stifled our giggles; the command post was like a sentry box only with a door. He said,’ I’m sorry I can’t show you inside for someone’s lost the key.’ Then he said, ‘If there is any close artillery, run down the avenue blowing this whistle loudly. Only I’m sorry it doesn’t work for its also lost its pea. You had best bang on doors and shout.’ Then he left us. It was cold and eerie and we were glad when the changeover came. When we got home in the warm and Mum made us a cup of tea, she started to get the giggles. ‘That was a right Fred Karno’s Army wasn’t it! Key lost, pea missing.’ She was wiping her eyes from giggling and I was the same. But one night we arrived to do our stint, when the chap we were to take over from said, ‘There’s been a lot of activity over there tonight, poor souls.’ We looked towards the direction he pointed and we watched Bristol burning. Then he said,’ Would you rather I stayed with you, just in case?’ Mum said we would be OK, but he stayed on a while. After all, he was a neighbour, although we didn’t know him well. Mum had added with a grin, ‘ At least there is a new key for the box and a nice new whistle.’ We had a laugh at that and we were more comfortable.
Now, I’ve mentioned Bristol, brought to mind that our boss in the Admiralty encouraged us to become blood donors, which we did on a regular basis. And to go one Sunday a month to a lovely village outside Bristol to a large mansion there, which was being used for our badly wounded soldiers. We were to help in the kitchen, then take the food through for the men, also help feed the ones who found it a little difficult to feed themselves, help clear up, then take them in drinks and just chatter with them. Some used to save up their sweet ration so they felt they were giving something in return. At first, it was harrowing, but after a time, although you never got used to seeing these men, you felt you could just about cope. Another place he got us to go to, again on a Sunday, was another large house in Bath given over to small children who had lost their parents and homes. We helped feed the babies, then take them out a little while. You might have two in a pram and four small ones walking. After a certain time, you took them back and helped put them down in cots or small beds to rest. That was it.
While I think of it, Churchill had been asking the Americans to give us some help, but they didn’t want to know. Then, on 7th of December 1941, they had a change of heart, when the Japanese flew to Pearl Harbour, where the Americans had quite a few ships moored, and bombed them. Then the Americans had no option but to enter the war. Bath was called a neutral city. Germany had Dresden. We got off lightly, but when it was discovered that Dresden had munition factories there, that’s why we bombed them. They still made a fuss about it, but they never kept their word about anything. But we didn’t quite escape. We had a night of bombing. I think it was a Friday, late evening. We all happened to be home. When the air raid siren went, Thelma was upstairs, the rest of us downstairs. Dad said, ‘Right, in the cupboard under the stairs.’ Mum called Thelma to come down. She said she was on her way. She was longer than we expected. When she did arrive, she said she had been watching one of the planes go over and she had had a good view of the pilot. Bath is like a basin – the city at the bottom and the hills all around. The planes went down the hills, dropped their bombs and came up the hills the other side. They must have been raw recruits because nearly all the bombs missed the city. One exploded quite close to our area.
The next morning, my friend Doris called round for we were going to meet other friends from the club and were going off somewhere (can’t remember where) but two of the lads lived half way down Snow Hill, one Horace by name was the same age as us and his younger brother, Cecil. I always thought what awful names their parents had given them. Horace said he would look out for us and we would go together. Doris and I started down the hill and were talking about the night before, when we noticed a lot of activity. There was glass and rubble everywhere and I spotted the boys’ father sitting on a pile of rubble, his head in his hands crying. He had been on air warden duty when the police or someone came to tell him to go home as it had been his house that had taken most of the damage. Firemen and others had been working on removing the debris. We turned round at the sound of shouting and finally they emerged carrying three black bags. Horace, Cecil and their mother hadn’t stood a chance. Their father was in a right state. After the funeral, he just disappeared. We met the rest of the gang, told them and called our trip off. Doris and I went home another way, longer but we didn’t want to go past the poor old chap again.
That afternoon, Tot came home from work, knocked on our door and said to Dad, ‘Tonight, we are going out to the countryside in case there’s a repeat of last night and I think you four should come with us.’ So that night we all piled into his lorry. The four of us were in the back with some aeroplane propellers and it was rather uncomfortable. We drove in the dark. Tot seemed to know where he was going. Eventually, we stopped and settled down as best we could for the night. Next morning, at day break, we all tumbled out to stretch ourselves. Looking around, we found that we were on a perishing air field, so we clambered back in the lorry and high-tailed it back home. There had been some bombing for we had heard it, but not, it turned out, near our homes. Dad had a rest and went to where he worked to see if things were OK there. When he came back, he told us that we would be going off again that night, but it would be different, and it was. We went in a coach with others from Dad’s place of work, laid on by the Admiralty. They laid on several coaches with different places to go to. Ours was going to a lovely village called Monkton Farley (of course, we didn’t know this till we arrived). We pulled up in the grounds of a very large house. The owner, Lady Backhouse, came forward and welcomed us and ushered us all into one of the very large downstairs rooms. This was fitted out with mattresses taken from the beds, camp beds, pillows and blankets. We had stretched out when it was getting toward dark. After we chose our beds, we laid down fully clothed, threw on a blanket and settled down to sleep. It was a bit noisy during the night, what with snoring and coughing. In the morning, we were given drinks again and took it in turns to go to the bathrooms, to wash face and hands and use the toilets. Then, with thanking her ladyship, we got into the coach and went home. All had been quiet again, so Dad said, ‘I don’t think we need to go again.’ That was the only bit of bombing we had.
Time went on. Myself, Dad and Thelma ate at work in the canteens. Sometimes Dad would come and eat with me in my workplace at the Empire Hotel. But when I moved to my other job, we used to eat at the British Restaurant, as they were called, which served plain but healthy food. By we, I mean the girls I worked with.
One evening, another friend and I – coming from the cinema having seen, I think it was, The Wicked Lady starring Margaret Lockwood and James Mason – were both hungry, so decided to go to ‘The Hole in the Wall’ and eat. On the way, we decided to have a smoke. We had just started doing this and thought we were the bee’s knees. In the city street, lights used to be on but gave out a very dim light. We stopped under one to light our fags when my friend said, ‘Ouch, something’s gone in my eye.’ I tried to see what it was but the light was too dim. While we were doing this, two Americans stopped and asked us if we knew where a particular place was. I knew, because it was a bit further up the hill from where I lived. It was a big house given over to injured Yanks – a sort of rest home. I gave them directions and turned back to my friend who was still troubled with her eye. I said to her, ‘Come, let’s go and eat then we will be able to see what is wrong with your eye.’ One of the Yanks said, ‘Did you say you were going to eat? May we join you?’ I said, ‘If you must.’ The one who had asked attached himself to my friend and I had to put up with the other. His name was Arnold Kirby. I said, ‘Let me tell you right away, Kirby, I don’t like Americans.’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t like English girls.’ We went to the Hole in the Wall and had a meal. They offered to pay and we let them.
It turned out that my friend had to go to the eye hospital. The Yank she was with visited her there and they became a twosome. As for Kirby, we went off together because I lived in more or less the same direction. When we came to where I had to turn off, I pointed out that he went further up, ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’ve got it,’ then insisted he saw me home. I wasn’t very pleased but there was no shifting him, so on the way I said, ‘Where are you wounded?’ He said, ‘In the back and side and I have pieces of shrapnel in my intestines, which have to work their way out.’ I said, ‘In the back? What were you doing running away?’ He said.’ You really don’t like us Yanks, do you? What would you do, though, if I came over bad and collapsed in the gutter?’ I said, ‘Step right over you and go home.’ He said, ‘Well, you are honest, aren’t you.’ We came to our house and I said, ‘Well, thanks for your company and I hope you get better quite soon.’ He went off and I went indoors.
Mum was up and I told her about what had happened and she said I shouldn’t have been so nasty to the poor soul. Dad was in bed, which was lucky for he couldn’t stand the Americans. He worked long hours each day. The only thing wrong with that, Thelma and I found out that that wasn’t quite true. I happened to bump into her one evening and we had both been on our way home. I don’t know where she had been and I didn’t ask, but she was in a good mood. A bit further on was a pub. She said, ‘Come on, I’ll treat you to a drink.’ We got inside the door when [she] stopped dead and grabbed my arm and nodded her head. I looked to where she had nodded and saw Dad with this woman, talking and laughing. We turned tail and went. She said.’ I know her. She works at our place. So that’s part of his working day,’ she went on. ‘Nothing must be said to Mum,’ which I readily agreed. Mum never ever knew and we never ever referred to it again. Thelma did say to me that she wasn’t surprised, knowing the woman and it wasn’t a one off, she thought.
I still went down the club. I had a new friend name Doris who lived near me with her family, which came from London. I joined her in our club, which was looking very different for some of the older ones had been called up, so they would be in their various uniforms. They would tell us stories of their different experiences.
Going back to Kirby. I went home one evening and Mum said, ‘I had a visitor this afternoon. An American called round. He asked for you. I said you were out. He looked so tired, I asked him if he would like to come in and sit a while and have a cup of tea. He looked at me for a moment and said “I would much prefer coffee, Ma’m”’ Mum said,’ Oh dear, I don’t have any of that.’ He said, ‘ Not to worry Ma’m, I’ve got some here,’ and walking into the house, placed the bag he was carrying on the table, saying ‘I brought these for you all, Ma’m.’ The bag contained a carton of cigars, a jar of coffee, various sweets, a jar ????? butter and some oranges. Mum said, ‘ You didn’t have to do that, but I must thank you very much.’ It seems he spent most of the afternoon with her and Mum said, ‘Surely they don’t expect you to fight again, do they?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘Usually they discharge you, but as my father had a couple of men’s hair salons, he ran one and I ran the other, so they offered me a sort of civilian job working as a barber in the camps, which I took up.’ His camp was quite a way away and he had come by train and was booked into the place I had directed him to.
Until we went back to Becontree when the war ended, he was a regular visitor and always brought cigs and sweets and other things. He used to write to me when he was at camp.
One day, he wrote to say he would be coming and would have a friend with him who had also been wounded and he also had his own barbers in New York and he helped Kirby with cutting hair. Kirby said he would be fetching this guy, whose name was Trentino Velucci and perhaps I would ask Thelma if she would meet him. I asked her. She said OK but just the once. So, Kirby, Trent and myself met her off the coach that the Admiralty supplied to take staff back and forth to and from work. I said before it was out in the country, but I didn’t say it was underground. A bunker, I suppose you would call it. Thelma and other girls tracked ships. I don’t know exactly what Dad did, only that he was in charge of about a dozen Italian prisoners of war and he complained a lot about rats running over his feet when he was working at his desk. Well, getting back to Thelma, they hit it off right away. He was very handsome and Kirby and I left them to it. Kirby could only come up at weekends and we would go out and about just as good friends up until we moved back to Becontree.
It was getting near the end of the war and Dad came home one day saying that he liked Bath and had decided to stay there. He had seen a flat in Camden Crescent and thought that we could leave the old man’s place and move there. Being high up, we looked down on to the city. But no sooner had we gone there, Dad had his bombshell. The Port of London had the docks working again and wanted him back and the Admiralty wanted him as well. So, there was a court case. This went on for a while and the PLO won. Dad wasn’t at all pleased, but there was little he could do about it.
While this was going on, the war came to an end. I was 17 that January and would rather have stayed in Bath as well. The same for Mum. She would miss her new life. So, after a while, we upped sticks and moved back to Essex. I was released from the Admiralty because of my age. They said I couldn’t be left behind. So, we moved back and, in those days, you had to report to the Labour Exchange and they found you a new job. When I was due to go, Mum came with me, with the intention of going to Ellen’s. But as it worked out, when I said what I had been doing in the Admiralty (only to do with the printing part, for I was still under the Secrets Act, which they knew) they found me a job right away at Nestles in the City in the print room. Mum and I went along and I got the job. Then we went on to Ellen’s.
Flashback – When we knew the war was at an end, it seemed like everyone had gone into the city. There was music and dancing, hugging each other, some people crying. It was a massive party. It went on for hours, more and more people turning up. And I think best of all, the lights went on. No more blackout. It went on throughout the night.
Nestles
Back again. On the Monday morning, I turned up at Nestles which was then at 6-8 East Cheap near the Monument of the Great Fire of London, having travelled in by train. The printing room was in the basement, women and men combined. I say women, but it was mainly girls, plus a few men. They were a nice bunch and we all got on fine together. I noticed each one had a boy’s name. The only ones I can remember were Roberta Robinson, who was called Buddy, Jacqueline was Jack and so on. Writing this down, going back in time, it came to me how I got lumbered with the name Terry. The bloke in charge of the printing of labels with other chaps, Arthur Coleman by name, was to my mind a nasty piece. He used to try and lord it over us. We had our own supervisor named Flo or Fred, as she became in the silly game of having boy’s names. One day, he was trying to boss it over us and made me lose my concentration, so I let rip. He cleared off then, but girls were having a giggle about it and one said, ‘You are terrible,’ which then started the Terry business and it stuck. As I think it did with all of us.
Flo or Fred, one morning, was called into the boss’s room and came back all excited. She told us that the old boy was retiring and we would be having a new boss, starting on the following Monday. She said he had worked there before he was called up, so he wasn’t a stranger. News got around and many were looking forward to him coming back. It was a Saturday morning when some of us had gone in to finish off a job. The place was cold. Our electric fire had broken down and we asked if we could have an electrician fix it. Later, this chap came down the stairs. I went over to him and said we wanted the fire fixed and he sat on the stairs with the fire and fixed it. We thanked him and he said, ‘That’s OK,’ then went over to speak to Arthur Coleman and had a good chat. Bertie always denied he fixed the fire. He was a tall chap and wore a navy-blue suit, rather short in the sleeves. It turned out it was his demob suit. Come the Monday morning, we were called in to meet the new boss and of course it was the chap I had thought was the electrician. I was somewhat embarrassed. He knew it too, and asked me if we were warm enough now our fire had been fixed. I thought, I daren’t be rude and just said, ‘Yes, thank you.’
Time went by and we all settled back in our routine. It was about this time that I knew something was wrong at home between Mum and Dad. Then one evening, Mum wanted to talk to me. I soon knew the cause of the trouble. Mum told me Thelma stayed in Bath because she found she was pregnant by Trent Velucci. She had a baby girl and was coming home. She had been clever in a way, by naming the baby Louise, my father’s mother’s name. When she did arrive, things changed. Everything revolved around the child, even Dad who doted on her. It didn’t bother me; I just carried on going out with friends and enjoying myself. I suppose the experience of being evacuated and living away from them had made me a bit independent.
Things settled down and we all led our own lives. Dad still always wanted me to go shopping with him if he wanted to buy himself something, mainly clothes. Something he had always done. He would ask my opinion on what he was thinking of getting. He certainly needed clothes. When we came back to Sheppey Road, he opened his wardrobe where he had left a lot of clothes and found the moths had had a field day.
Flashback – Writing about his mother, Louise, and me always going with him shopping, brought back the time his mother died. I had been before when they had family meetings and never once did he take Mum or Thelma. This particular time, when we were all assembled, we all went into the room where she laid in state in a grand coffin without its lid and one by one we had to go forward and kiss her forehead, after which the lid was placed on and sealed. It was a scary moment for us kids. When the glass hearse with its four black horses arrived, we were told we would not be going and one of the sisters-in-law stayed to look after us till they returned.
Anyway, back to Nestles. The days went by then one day I came through the front door and there was Bertie (or Bill as we called him then) belting down the stairs. He grabbed my arm and said,’ I was hoping to catch you. How do you fancy going to the cinema?’ I said OK and so it was arranged. We didn’t go together, but met at a certain place. So, come the evening, we arranged to go. Bertie turned up with a box of chocolates and then we headed off to the West End and so to the cinema. He insisted on seeing me all the way home. And so that’s how we worked it for the rest of my stay at Nestles. Arthur Coleman was a bit suspicious but never could prove it.
One day I wasn’t feeling too well, so didn’t go to work. I phoned Bertie to let him know and went to the doctor’s. Coming up to this time, Thelma had decided that she had to get a job to pay her way and Mum asked me if I would give up my work and join Thelma, to support her I suppose. So, I gave up my job and she and I went to Millwall and applied for a job in one of the factories. We were both taken on. The factory was the food, Maconochies (can’t recall how it was spelt, but it was quite a well-known factory.) My first job was on a conveyor belt at that time, doing custard powders, which we packed so many into a box. That’s where I first made friends with Gladys Challis.
Grandad had moved from the cottage and had a modern flat. Jim and Pat lived there with him. Pat, after a short while, moved into her own place for she was married to a chap called Tom Bennet who was a soldier, although she spent a lot of time at Grandad’s flat. Thelma and I used to go every lunch time to the flat and have a light lunch. Anyway, back at the factory, Gladys also lived on the island. Sitting next to me was another Gladys who wanted to be a singer. She was going to have an audition for some stage show, but just before, she became very ill and her dreams were shattered. Her young brother often came to the factory gate and waited for her to walk her home. He was a cheeky little beggar but we liked him a lot. Later, he was to do what his sister had wanted – he became a singer. His name was Kenny Lynch. Gladys Challis and I used to go about together. We both liked music hall and spent many a happy time at the Hackney Empire. Anne Shelton was a regular singer there. Once I had started courting seriously, we didn’t go out together very much. But I had her as one of my bridesmaids when I married.
Various foods went along our moving belt. The one I hated was Christmas puddings. They stained your fingers and I would take it off. Even then it stained but in a lighter colour. I mention this because it looked as if you were a very heavy smoker. After every shift we all had to take a broom and sweep up. Tom, our supervisor, watched me when I started sweeping. He came over and said, ‘You ever used a broom before?’ I said, ‘I don’t think I have.’ He said, ‘I can tell that!’ and took the broom off me. I never swept up again.
One day he asked me to go with a message which was a written one, and pop along to the shipping supervisor. He told me where to go, where I would find the man’s office. I took the note, found the office and went in. There were two men there. I didn’t know who was who, but a short elderly man stepped over and [said], ‘I believe you have a note for me.’ I gave it to him, then turned away to go when I spotted a wooden name plate on his desk. I was surprised then grinned. He gave a sigh and said, ‘If you’re thinking of making a crack, don’t bother. I’ve heard them all.’ I said, turning to him,’ Sorry but I was taken by surprise. I have the same surname.’ He looked surprised, shook me by the hand and said, ‘We must be related somewhere along the line’ then asked my Dad’s Christian name. When I told him, he said, ‘Yes, I know him. Still at the docks is he?’ I said yes and told him about the Admiralty when the docks were out of action. The other chap suddenly said, ‘Is your mother’s name Blanche?’ I said, ‘Yes, and it’s mine.’ He shook hands with me too. It turned out he was the shop steward. Then he said, ‘Well, I’m another branch of the family – the Martinis.’ Later, on the way home, I told Thelma all that happened and what had been said. Her reaction surprised me – she was furious. I had had no business discussing the family, and sat tight lipped till we got home. We went back and forth by bus. When we were indoors, she was still angry and ranted on about me talking about the family. Mum calmed her down, saying she didn’t know what the fuss was about. Then she laughed and said, ‘In a place like that, it is very handy having a relative who’s shop steward of the trade union.’
The stuff we were handling was getting me down; stuff from various powders would waft around, settling on you, your overalls, everywhere. I used to moan like hell about it. Then one day, Tom called me over and told me that a vacancy had come in the essence dept. and he had arranged for me to go there. It was a smallish room and the smell was very nice. You sat at a table with a machine which you filled with the stuff, then pressing a small bottle against a tap, you filled the bottle and placed a cork in the top and another gadget on your machine pressed it in. It was a pleasant place to work in and I was the youngest. All the others were older married women. They warned me about the supervisor, a red headed little twerp who fancied himself with the ladies. He would be very suggestive and try to stand very close to you. Horrible man.
One day he was a bit too much and I mentioned it to Jim one lunchtime when he asked me what was the matter. The next day, when Thelma and I came out to go to the flat, Jim was waiting outside on the pavement opposite. He asked if I was OK. Then he looked over my shoulder. I turned and saw the supervisor (I can’t for the life of me remember his name). He hesitated, then said, ‘Hi there, Rocky.’ (Jim had done a lot of boxing and he went under the name Rock Roche.) Later in the afternoon, the creep came up to me and said, ‘You know Rocky, do you? Bit old for you, isn’t he?’ I said, ‘I don’t know that you are trying to infer. He happens to be my uncle and won’t take it nicely as to what you have just implied.’ He went red and said, ‘I was only kidding.’ And from then on kept his distance. It must have been three or four months later he was found hanging from the railings around the top floor of the factory.
I must say about this building. It was old and on several floors. When I first went there, I was shocked at the morning ritual we did. The back of the place had large wooden doors which, when opened, you were on the river. The ritual was getting hold of old tin lids which were stacked in the corner and crash them together like hell and watch the rats running across the wooden roof rafters and out their various holes. That will be enough about that place.
I still went out with Bertie. Often, he came to my home and spent the evening there. Then one weekend, I went to meet his family. I got on well with his mother and brother Alf, also Nora who was courting George Barker. Margaret I wasn’t so keen on and as for his father, he was a little s–. He said when we first met, ‘I give it six months.’ I wish he was alive still. It’s been a hell of a long six months. Jack was OK, but it was Muriel I got friendly with. The old fellow was a very good gardener and Bertie learnt a lot from him. He grew some very good vegetables but would not let Bertie’s mum pick them so she still went to the greengrocers. Though, when his veg started running to seed, he said she could pick his, which she didn’t do. When she put coal on the fire, he would take some off. He also was always switching off lights.
Muriel married Stan Archer. On their honeymoon, he took her to a large house saying he was going to see the children he had there. He had been married before and when his wife died, he had put his three children into this home – two girls and a boy – Daphne, Sylvia and Geoffrey. Muriel was appalled and demanded they came out of there. So, she started married life with three kids. She then went to have six of her own – Heather, Rosemary, Jimmy, Clive, Edward and Caroline.
Bertie’s mum and dad lived in Hornsey. At Christmas time they always had great parties. Nora and George Barker got engaged. As it was a bit hard to get somewhere to live, Bertie’s grandfather and grandmother Williams (who lived at 3 Hampden Road, Muswell Hill) offered Nora the top of their house as they couldn’t manage the stairs. Plus the fact that the old lady had fallen from top to bottom, catching her head on the door latch, splitting it open. A very nasty accident. She was fetching down a tot of whiskey for the old fellow to drink as it was a very cold morning and in those days he had to walk to work for quite a distance. He was a plasterer and at the time working in the Tate Gallery on the ceiling there. Nora turned the offer down. We thought they were stupid, but later we understood why.
Isle of Man
In the meantime, Bert had an invitation to visit his friend on the Isle of Man, on his farm. So, Bert and I, Nora and George decided to go. I’ll never forget this journey across the Irish Sea. Many were sea sick, even the staff. Of us four, I was the one who was sick. I never want to go through that again. When we arrived at Douglas, we then had to get a train, which looked like something out of Toy Town; wooden seats and your back was so low that you could talk to the people in the next carriage and it went so slowly that you could almost walk by the side of it and pick flowers growing on the banks. I was still feeling rough and hoped we arrived soon. When we did arrive at our destination, I found we had to walk about a mile or so to get to the farm. When we did we passed an old lady sitting in a chair shelling peas. We said hello, but she just stared at us. Then Bert’s friend, Arthur Christian, came to greet us. He always maintained that he was a descendent of Christian of the Bounty. The old lady was his mother though we never saw her again the whole week we were there.
We went into the house and were introduced to Arthur’s wife, Evelyn. She had prepared a meal for us. First, though, we four were shown our rooms. Having put away my things, I went over to look out of the window, being at the back of the house. It had a lovely view over the farm. It was a big place. I heard a noise and, leaning over and looking down, saw several cows clustered there. I drew back and thought, ‘God, that’s all I need.’ Bert came in and asked if I was ready to go down. I said, ‘There are cows down there.’ He said, ‘Yes, there usually are on a farm.’ I saw it was no used explaining and followed him downstairs. When we entered the room, the table was all laid out and, in the centre, on a large plate, was the fattest piece of pork I’d ever seen. It looked so greasy that all I could do was to run out of the room, up to the bathroom and be as sick as a dog again. Bert had followed me and suggested I went to bed, which I did while he went back to the others and explained about my sea sickness and that I was still feeling poorly. The sooner I left the better. The next morning, I was OK.
The Isle of Man is a beautiful place. Well, it was when we were there. But it wasn’t my happy place. Several things happened there that I felt the sooner I left the better. It all started with the bull. Evelyn had reared it from a youngster and it followed her everywhere. So, after breakfast, Arthur said, ‘Come on, I’ll take you round the farm. It was a lovely place. We had a good breakfast. I sat with my back to the door and had this feeling that we were being watched. Feeling was so strong, I swung round and saw three faces peering round the door – three sons, Donald, Jack and Derek. They shot away.
Evelyn called them in and in they trooped. I think there were four of them, but can’t remember the last one’s name. They so rarely saw strangers and stood in a row shuffling their feet, heads down, but sneaking a look at us every now and then. Off we went for our walk round the farm. It was a large place, very peaceful and lovely. We came to a five barred gate and Arthur started to open the gate when I said, ‘What is that? A bull?’ Arthur said, ‘Yes, that’s Evelyn’s pet.’ I said, pointing my finger at the animal, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not going in there.’ Suddenly the thing started to charge, head down and snorting, toward the gate, which Arthur quickly shut and bolted. Arthur said, shaking his head, ‘I don’t know what’s got into him.’ The next I heard was that the bull had gone a bit mad and had to be put down. He – Arthur – said that it wasn’t my fault, though he looked at me saying it wasn’t my fault at all, it happens. But at the time, I saw him giving me a funny look now and then. Bert later told me that the people on the island were very superstitious.
I can’t say what we did in order, so I will tell of what we did at random. One time, Evelyn said she would like some lobsters. Arthur said, ‘OK. I’ll get a sack.’ He bundled us all in his car and we drove to a lighthouse. We piled out and around the base of the lighthouse were great slippery rocks. I was slipping around a bit on those rocks. Bert told me to go back to the level surface. Arthur said, ‘Tell you what. You take charge of the sack.’ So, there was I complete with sack. Soon they were catching with hooks Arthur had brought with him, getting the lobsters off. Then they clambered back and dropped them in my sack. The blasted things were gnashing around inside. Anyhow, it was a fun thing to do.
Another time, he said we would drive out to a pub which had superb views. He also wanted to show us something that might interest us. Here, I will say, this car we were all in was old. I had been put in the front seat next to Arthur and the handle on my door wasn’t working and you had to use a small spanner and wriggle it around until it opened. Well, we drove on a while and he said, ‘Everyone out,’ stopping on the side of the road at the foot of a steep hill. It was just a grassy hill and I thought what’s so special about that. He looked at me with a bit of a grin on his face and said, ‘I think this will interest you. As you have probably noticed, people here are very superstitious and in the old days they accused some women of being witches. Of course, they pleaded innocence, so to prove that they were innocent, they were forced into spiked barrels and these were then pushed down the hill. If they were still alive when the barrel hit bottom, they were proved to be innocent.’ We treated it as a fairy story, but a slight change came over one and all when approaching the car, which was parked on a slight incline. I said, ‘That door’s a darn nuisance trying to open and close it. I wish it would open itself.’ Much to our amazement it very slowly opened, not all the way, but enough for me to get in without messing about with the spanner. It turned quiet for a moment, then Arthur laughed and said, ‘Just as well they don’t roll barrels these days. Come on, let’s go for a drink.’
We drove to a pub and entered. It was quite full but I managed to find seats. Arthur and Bert went up to the bar. Looking about me, I found I was sitting near to an old man, small and clean and wearing old clothes. He nodded to me and said hello. Arthur was almost at the table, but managed to set the drinks on the table without mishap. Arthur said quietly to me, ‘He won’t answer you, love. He’s the local hermit, love. Comes in here sometimes for a pint but speaks to no-one. It’s said he lives in a cave somewhere in the hills.’ Some men had been playing darts but had now finished their game. Arthur said to Bert, ‘Come on, we can have a game.’ George was roped in and I made up the foursome. I was pretty good in those days. We started to play, then suddenly the pub went quiet. Everyone was watching, not because I was good but simply because the old hermit was calling out to me every time it was my turn, like ‘Come on Lass, you do want a six’ or a twenty or a sixty. I was doing what he suggested for fun, but the people around were all watching and not making a sound. The game finished and we went back to our seats. The old chap said, ‘that was good, lass, good,’ finished his drink and left. The place was buzzing with talk when he had gone, the landlord saying, ‘I keep telling you he can talk.’ We drank up our drinks and left with the pub still buzzing with talk.
While on the island, we went to several pubs and you always found that one person would start singing and then others would join in till it sounded like a choir. George and I used to join in for the songs were always very old ones or hymns. One pub was at Tynwald. Tynwald was where the island’s parliament met. This particular pub was a cut above the others for it had a juke box. By the look of it, it must have been one of the first ever made and the records were as old too. But everyone knew them and sang along with them. George and I joined in. Then, through the door, came this short bandy man with sacks tied round [his] lower legs, smelling to high heaven. He had been muck spreading and had called in for his lunch time pint. Fortunately, the music stopped and I could get away. I kept close to Bert after that.
Another day, Arthur said he wanted to go to a cattle auction. So off we set, but when we arrived, Arthur said to Nora and I, ‘You two go in while we just go and have a pint. We won’t be long.’ He settled us in seats that looked down on to the ring and the auctioneer. Then off the men went. More and more people were coming in and the place was filling up. I thought, they will not see us, so I kept an eye on the door. One lot of cattle went then another, then after a while when another batch of cows came into the ring, I spotted the men. I waved to attract their attention. This I did a couple of times, then saw Bert and George coming up to us. But Arthur was going toward the ring. I had stopped waving of course, but when Arthur, having spoken to the auctioneer, came up and said to Bert and George, ‘It’s alright, lads.’ I wondered what it was that was alright. Later, when we left the place and were outside, Arthur laughed and said, ‘Phew. That was a close one.’ I wondered what he meant, so he explained. He said to me, ‘Each time you waved, it was taken as a bid. Thank god he was a mate of mine and was about to knock them down to you. He was OK about it.’ We laughed again, saying if they had been a decent set of cows, I would have paid for them, but they were they were the scraggiest lot of cows I’d ever seen.
We had gone there on the train, so we made our way back to the station. The carriage we got into had one man in it. Arthur knew him and spoke to him. We settled into our seats and I found myself sitting opposite the man. He was drunk. He was Irish. Arthur said, ‘This lass is from there.’ The drunk, leaning forward, asked where. Speaking in a fake Irish accent the best I could, I replied. ‘Donegal.’ He nodded his head, looked quickly out of the window, then back to me and slurred, ‘Take my advice,’ slapping me on my knee, saying, ‘So long as you have clothes on your back (slap), boots on your feet (slap) and half a crown in your pocket (slap), you give a bugger to no-one,’ opened the door, jumped out slipping down the bank and we lost sight of him. Nora was for stopping the train, but Arthur laughed and said, ‘Lord no, they are used to it. He lives just across the field and he will walk up or, if too drunk, will stay where he is and sleep it off first. He is well known for it.’
When we got to the farm, Arthur, amid much laughter, related the cow episode to Evelyn. By this time, I had noticed that if we passed any women, they would pull their shawl across their faces, then having passed took the shawl away. I asked Arthur about this. He was reluctant to say, but I wanted to know for I thought it an odd thing to do. Then, looking a bit embarrassed, he explained that it stopped them looking at me in case I put the evil eye on them. This was indeed a queer place. Bert had told told us about the bridge. It seemed whenever you crossed this bridge, you had to say good morning fairies, or good afternoon or good night. This stopped them putting the evil eye on you. Bert told me that during the war, a lorry containing members of the forces was crossing it and skidded and tipped over. No-one was badly hurt, but it shook them up. By now the boys were present everywhere you went. They were a pain in the backside.
*Tong fight – Tongs were groups among Chinese immigrant communities sometimes involved in criminal activity and tied to the Triads.